Overview

In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas lives an embittered judge who wants only to retire in peace, when his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, arrives on his doorstep. The judge’s cook watches over her distractedly, for his thoughts are often on his son, Biju, who is hopscotching from one gritty New York restaurant to another. Kiran Desai’s brilliant novel, published to huge acclaim, is a story of joy and despair. Her characters face numerous choices that majestically ...

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This Book

Overview

In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas lives an embittered judge who wants only to retire in peace, when his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, arrives on his doorstep. The judge’s cook watches over her distractedly, for his thoughts are often on his son, Biju, who is hopscotching from one gritty New York restaurant to another. Kiran Desai’s brilliant novel, published to huge acclaim, is a story of joy and despair. Her characters face numerous choices that majestically illuminate the consequences of colonialism as it collides with the modern world.

Winner of the 2006 Man Booker Prize and the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2006

“If book reviews just cut to the chase, this one would simply read: This is a terrific novel! Read it!” Ann Harleman, The Boston Globe

“One of the most impressive novels in English of the past year, and I predict you’ll read it with your heart in your chest, inside the narrative, and the narrative inside you.” Alan Cheuse, Chicago Tribune

“[An] extraordinary new novel lit by a moral intelligence at once fierce and tender.” Pankaj Mishra, front-cover review in The New York Times Book Review

“If God is in the details, Ms. Desai has written a holy book. Page after page, from Harlem to the Himalayas, she captures the terror and exhilaration of being alive in the world.” Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan

“It’s a clash of civilizations, even empires . . . The idea of an old empire, the British one collides against the nouveaux riche American one. The story ricochets between the two worlds, held together by Desai’s sharp eyes and even sharper tongue. . . . This is a . . . substantial meal, taking on heavier issues of land and belonging, home and exile, poverty and privilege, and love and the longing for it.” —Sandip Roy, San Francisco Chronicle (front page review)

“Briskly paced and sumptuously written, the novel ponders questions of nationhood, modernity, and class, in ways both moving and revelatory.” —The New Yorker

“Editor’s Choice Kiran Desai writes beautifully about powerless people as they tangle with the modern world and in so doing she casts her own powerful spell.” Elizabeth Taylor, Chicago Tribune

“An endearing view of globalisation . . . The Inheritance of Loss is a book about tradition and modernity, the past and the future-and about the surprising ways both amusing and sorrowful, in which they all connect. . . . A wide variety of readers should enjoy.” —Boyd Tonkin, The Independent (London)

“Impressive . . . a big novel that stretches from India to New York; an ambitious novel that reaches into the lives of the middle class and the very poor; an exuberantly written novel that mixes colloquial and more literary styles; and yet it communicates nothing so much as how impossible it is to live a big, ambitious, exuberant life. . . .Desai’s prose becomes marvelously flexible . . . always pulsing with energy.” —Natasha Walter, The Guardian

“With her second novel, Kiran Desai has written a sprawling and delicate book, like an ancient landscape glittering in the rain. . . . Desai has a touch for alternating humor and impending tragedy that one associates with the greatest writers, and her prose is uncannily beautiful, a perfect balance of lyricism and plain speech.” —O: The Oprah Magazine

“An astute observer of human nature and a delectably sensuous satirist. . . . Perceptive and bewitching. . . . Desai is superbly insightful in her rendering of compelling characters, and in her wisdom regarding the perverse dynamics of society. . . . Incisively and imaginatively dramatizes the wonders and tragedies of Himalayan life and, by extension, the fragility of peace and elusiveness of justice, albeit with her own powerful blend of tenderness and wit.” —Booklist (starred review)

“Stunning . . . In this alternately comical and contemplative novel, Desai deftly shuttles between first and third worlds, illuminating the pain of exile, the ambiguities of post-colonialism and the blinding desire for a ‘better life’ when one person’s wealth means another’s poverty.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[An] exceptionally talented writer . . .She doesn’t falter . . . penning a book that is wise, insightful and full of wonderfully compelling and conflicted characters. . . . The Inheritance of Loss distinguishes her as a writer of note. . . . A deft and often witty commentary on cultural issues. . . . Abundant with illuminating detail and potent characters . . . With its razor insights and emotional scope The Inheritance of Loss amplifies a developing and formidable voice.” —Jenifer Berman, Los Angeles Times

“Desai’s Indian characters are exquisitely particular—funny but never quaint, full of foibles but never reduced by authorial condescension. Bittersweet, entertaining, and just shy of tragic, The Inheritance of Loss is surprisingly wise.” —Economist

“Desai is a gorgeous writer, capable of pulling us along on a raft of sensuous images that are often beautiful not because what they describe are inherently so, but because she has shown their naked truth . It is her language that draws us in and pins us there . Elegant and brave ” Sue Halpern, The New York Review of Books

“In keeping with the confident touch displayed throughout this rich, beguiling tale, the final scene treats the heart to one last moment of wild, comic joy—even as it satisfies the head by refusing to relinquish the dark reality that is the life of the characters. . . . It is a work full of color and comedy, even as it challenges all to face the same heart-wrenching questions that haunt the immigrant. . . . Nothing sours the warm heart at the center of this novel. Desai is sometimes compared to Salman Rushdie, and the energy and fecundity of imagination in her works do make them somewhat akin to his. But the tenderness in her novels is all her own.” —Marjorie Kehe, Christian Science Monitor

"A rich, expansive work." —Dintia Smith, The New York Times

“Desai employs a kaleidoscopic technique to illuminate fractured lives. . . . A rich stew of ironies and contradictions. Desai’s eye for the ridiculous is as keen as ever.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Desai’s descriptions and her humor make this novel of national and personal identity fascinating.” Nola Theiss, Kliatt

“Desai’s assurance and energy keep the plot on track and bring her ambitious tale to a fittingly strong conclusion. 3 ½ stars” —People

“A meditative look at the conflicting bonds of love and duty.” —Vogue

“Ambitious . . . The book’s magic lies in such rich images as an Indian judge wearing a ‘silly white wig atop a dark face in the burning heat of summer.’ A-” —Missy Schwartz, Entertainment Weekly

“Desai shed light on the tribulations of all Indians abroad. . . . The passages about life in India are especially evocative, capturing the interplay between the country’s politics and people’s lives. . . . Desai’s nearly painterly attention to the small, yet utterly disturbing, human details . . . sticks with the reader. . . . Details its characters’ hardships head-on, and her elegant prose makes their experiences hard to forget.” —Reena Jana, Time Out

"Vast and vivid, full of tastes and smells, voices and accents, humor and fury. It is a captivating book." —Stephanie Deutsch, The Washington Times

“A tender story of a crotchety Anglophile Indian judge; his orphaned sixteen-year-old grand­
daughter, Sai; his subservient cook; and the cook’s son, Biju, whose hellish passage through the dirty basements and prep kitchens of glittering New York City restaurants bleakly parallels the goings-on back home . . . [Desai’s] is an incredibly unromantic vision, and seldom has an author offered so fearless a glimpse into how ordinary lives are caught up in the collision of modernity and cultural tradition.” —Jenny Feldman, Elle

“Impeccably beautiful the story of a modernizing India, a nation looking forward and backward at once, with its people trying to find their place in a new world of new opportunities.” Geeta Sharma-Jensen, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

“A finely textured story that mixes post-Raj dilemmas of modern India with the challenges of Indian immigrant life in New York.” Carlin Romano, Philadelphia Inquirer

“Desai’s strength lies in her ability to capture, with humor and grace, the nuanced complexities of the characters and their times. . . . [A novel] that brings both caring and understanding.” —Robin Vidimos, Denver Post

“Elegant . . . Desai’s meditation on colonialism and identity remind us of V.S. Naipaul. . . . What distinguishes Desai is her generosity, a deeply felt sympathy for her characters. . . . A poignant reminder of how the past haunts the present.” —Lester Pimentel, Newark Star-Ledger

“The young Desai proves her literary legacy (her mother is the inimitable Anita Desai) as she deftly unfurls piece by disparate piece the stories of each of the lost souls searching for connection.” —The Bloomsbury Review

"Very real and compelling main characters and a few wonderful minor ones as well. . . Desai is a confident and talented writer. Her novel is full of wisdom and subtle parallels; it is both funny and bitterly sad. . . . She is never preachy. . . or even predictable. . . . Desai has secured her place with the list of great contemporary Indian authors exploring life and society in India and elsewhere: think Salman Rushdie and Rohinton Mistry. The Inheritance of Loss is lovely and highly recommended. It is smart, witty and honest—a powerfully engrossing novel.” —Sarah Rachel Egelman, BookReporter.com

“Desai writes with assurance and lyricism about life in India, and her insights into how South Asia has been affected by America are fascinating and timely. This is an impressive, original novel from a welcome new voice in Indian fiction.” —Julie Hale, Bookpage

"Impressive... An exuberantly written novel that mixes colloquial and more literary styles." — Guardian Weekly (UK)

“An impressive familiarity with local customs and prejudices Of particular note is Desai’s voluptuous use of sensory detail to craft a mountainous world of fog, mist, and lush vegetation.” —Joanne McCarthy, Magill Book Reviews

“A nation's tragedies, great and small, are revealed through the hopes and the dreams, the innocence and the arrogance, the love betrayed, and the all too human failings of a superbly realized cast of characters. Kiran Desai writes of postcolonial India, of its poor as well as its privileged, with a cold eye and a warm heart. The Inheritance of Loss is an exquisite novel; mature, significant, and a first-rate read.” —Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of An Almost Perfect Moment

Pankaj Mishra

Although it focuses on the fate of a few powerless individuals, Kiran Desai's extraordinary new novel manages to explore, with intimacy and insight, just about every contemporary international issue: globalization, multiculturalism, economic inequality, fundamentalism and terrorist violence. Despite being set in the mid-1980's, it seems the best kind of post-9/11 novel.
— The New York Times

Donna Rifkind

The writing has a melancholy beauty here, especially in its sensuous evocations of the natural world: "white azaleas in flower, virginal yet provocative like a good underwear trick"; "mountains where monasteries limpet to the sides of rock." Her keen appreciation of contradiction enriches the book, and, if the integrity of her narrative is less than perfect, the integrity of her ideological convictions is absolute.
— The Washington Post

The New Yorker

Desai’s second novel is set in the nineteen-eighties in the northeast corner of India, where the borders of several Himalayan states—Bhutan and Sikkim, Nepal and Tibet—meet. At the head of the novel’s teeming cast is Jemubhai Patel, a Cambridge-educated judge who has retired from serving a country he finds “too messy for justice.” He lives in an isolated house with his cook, his orphaned seventeen-year-old granddaughter, and a red setter, whose company Jemubhai prefers to that of human beings. The tranquillity of his existence is contrasted with the life of the cook’s son, working in grimy Manhattan restaurants, and with his granddaughter’s affair with a Nepali tutor involved in an insurgency that irrevocably alters Jemubhai’s life. Briskly paced and sumptuously written, the novel ponders questions of nationhood, modernity, and class, in ways both moving and revelatory.

Publishers Weekly

This stunning second novel from Desai (Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard) is set in mid-1980s India, on the cusp of the Nepalese movement for an independent state. Jemubhai Popatlal, a retired Cambridge-educated judge, lives in Kalimpong, at the foot of the Himalayas, with his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, and his cook. The makeshift family's neighbors include a coterie of Anglophiles who might be savvy readers of V.S. Naipaul but who are, perhaps, less aware of how fragile their own social standing is-at least until a surge of unrest disturbs the region. Jemubhai, with his hunting rifles and English biscuits, becomes an obvious target. Besides threatening their very lives, the revolution also stymies the fledgling romance between 16-year-old Sai and her Nepalese tutor, Gyan. The cook's son, Biju, meanwhile, lives miserably as an illegal alien in New York. All of these characters struggle with their cultural identity and the forces of modernization while trying to maintain their emotional connection to one another. In this alternately comical and contemplative novel, Desai deftly shuttles between first and third worlds, illuminating the pain of exile, the ambiguities of post-colonialism and the blinding desire for a "better life," when one person's wealth means another's poverty. Agent, Michael Carlisle. (Jan.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

KLIATT
- Nola Theiss

The theme of loss is explored in this novel through the lives of three characters: a retired judge who went to Cambridge and is now living in Kalimpong, a remote town isolated on the edge of the Himalayas; his orphaned teenage granddaughter, Sai, who lives with him; and her math tutor, Gyan, who soon becomes involved with revolutionaries. Another character, Biju, whose story is told as if he lives in a parallel universe, is an illegal immigrant in New York City, going from one job to another, trying to find a place for himself. The judge has lost his place in India, where once he identified with the British rather than his own people. Sai has lost her parents, her young love, and hasn't yet found herself. Biju is searching for his place in a new world that seems to have no niche for him. Although this story is set in the 1980s, the issues of immigration and resentment of the West by those living in the East are relevant to the post-9/11 world. Despite its serious themes and message that multiculturalism may not be the answer to the world's or any individual's personal woes, Desai's descriptions and her humor make this intensely dense novel of national and personal identity fascinating. (Winner of the 2006 Man Booker Prize.)

Library Journal

A shell of his once imposing self, retired magistrate Patel retreats from society to live on what was previously a magnificent estate in India's Himalayas. Cho Oyu is as far away from the real world as the embittered Patel can get. Owing to neglect and apathy, its once beautiful wooden floors are rotted, mice run about freely, and extreme cold permeates everything. The old man isn't blind to the decay that surrounds him and in fact embraces it. But the outside world intrudes with the arrival of his young granddaughter-a girl he never even knew existed. Predictably, the relationship between the two builds throughout the narrative. A parallel story about love and loss is told through the voice of Patel's cook. After the success of her debut, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, Desai-the daughter of one of India's most gifted writers, Anita Desai-falls short in her second attempt at fiction. She fails to get readers to connect and identify with the characters, much less care for them. The story lines don't run together smoothly, and the switching between character narratives is very abrupt. Not recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/05.]-Marika Zemke, West Bloomfield Twp. P.L., MI Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Desai's somber second novel (a marked contrast to her highly acclaimed comic fable Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, 1998) looks at cultural dislocation as experienced by an unhappy Indian menage. In a once-sturdy house in Kalimpong, in the spectacular Himalayan foothills, live an old judge, his dog and his 17-year-old granddaughter Sai; in a nearby shack is the household's linchpin, the wretchedly underpaid cook. The judge and Sai are "estranged Indians" who converse in English, knowing little Hindi. The judge's estrangement began as a student in England. He envied the English and despised Indians, slathering powder over his too-brown skin, rejecting his peasant father; back in India, he could be hideously cruel to his wife, indirectly causing her death. He tolerates Sai (her Westernized parents were killed in an accident in the Soviet Union), but true love is reserved for his dog, Mutt. The year is 1985, and some young Nepali-Indian militants ("unleashed Bruce Lee fans") are fighting for their own state; they invade the judge's home and steal his rifles, after being tipped off by Sai's tutor Gyan, torn between his newfound ethnic loyalties and his delicate courtship of Sai. Meanwhile, in New York, the cook's son Biju, an illegal, is doing menial restaurant work; the cook, who clings to old superstitions while dreaming of electric toasters, had pushed him to emigrate. Desai employs a kaleidoscopic technique to illuminate fractured lives in Kalimpong, Manhattan and India, past and present. She finds a comic bounce in Biju's troubles even as Kalimpong turns grimmer; young rebels die, the police torture the innocent, Sai and Gyan's romance dissolves into recriminations and Mutt is stolen. Weare left with two images of love: the hateful judge, now heartbroken, beseeching a chaotic world for help in retrieving Mutt, and the returning Biju, loyal son, loyal Indian, hurtling into his father's arms. Less a compelling narrative than a rich stew of ironies and contradictions. Desai's eye for the ridiculous is as keen as ever. First printing of 40,000; $50,000 ad/promo

Library Journal

Hoping to be left alone, a retired judge in rural India becomes guardian to his overprivileged orphaned granddaughter, while the son of his cook struggles to make a life as an illegal immigrant in New York. (LJ 11/1/05)

Related Subjects

Read an Excerpt

The Inheritance of Loss

Grove Atlantic, Inc.

Chapter One

All day, the colors had been those of dusk, mist moving like a water creature across the
great flanks of mountains possessed of ocean shadows and depths. Briefly visible above
the vapor, Kanchenjunga was a far peak whittled out of ice, gathering the last of the light,
a plume of snow blown high by the storms at its summit.

Sai, sitting on the veranda, was reading an article about giant squid in an old National
Geographic. Every now and then she looked up at Kanchenjunga, observed its wizard
phosphorescence with a shiver. The judge sat at the far corner with his chessboard,
playing against himself. Stuffed under his chair where she felt safe was Mutt the dog,
snoring gently in her sleep. A single bald lightbulb dangled on a wire above. It was cold,
but inside the house, it was still colder, the dark, the freeze, contained by stone walls
several feet deep.

Here, at the back, inside the cavernous kitchen, was the cook, trying to light the damp
wood. He fingered the kindling gingerly for fear of the community of scorpions living,
loving, reproducing in the pile. Once he'd found a mother, plump with poison, fourteen
babies on her back.

Eventually, the fire caught and he placed his kettle on top, as battered, as encrusted as
something dug up by an archeological team,and waited for it to boil. The walls were
singed and sodden, garlic hung by muddy stems from the charred beams, thickets of soot
clumped batlike upon the ceiling. The flame cast a mosaic of shiny orange across the
cook's face, and his top half grew hot, but a mean gust tortured his arthritic knees.

Up through the chimney and out, the smoke mingled with the mist that was gathering
speed, sweeping in thicker and thicker, obscuring things in parts-half a hill, then the
other half. The trees turned into silhouettes, loomed forth, were submerged again.
Gradually the vapor replaced everything with itself, solid objects with shadow, and
nothing remained that did not seem molded from or inspired by it. Sai's breath flew from
her nostrils in drifts, and the diagram of a giant squid constructed from scraps of
information, scientists' dreams, sank entirely into the murk.

She shut the magazine and walked out into the garden. The forest was old and thick at the
edge of the lawn; the bamboo thickets rose thirty feet into the gloom; the trees were
moss-slung giants, bunioned and misshapen, tentacled with the roots of orchids. The
caress of the mist through her hair seemed human, and when she held her fingers out, the
vapor took them gently into its mouth. She thought of Gyan, the mathematics tutor, who
should have arrived an hour ago with his algebra book.

But it was 4:30 already and she excused him with the thickening mist.

When she looked back, the house was gone; when she climbed the steps back to the
veranda, the garden vanished. The judge had fallen asleep and gravity acting upon the
slack muscles, pulling on the line of his mouth, dragging on his cheeks, showed Sai
exactly what he would look like if he were dead.

"Where is the tea?" he woke and demanded of her. "He's late," said the judge, meaning
the cook with the tea, not Gyan. "I'll get it," she offered.

The gray had permeated inside, as well, settling on the silverware, nosing the corners,
turning the mirror in the passageway to cloud. Sai, walking to the kitchen, caught a
glimpse of herself being smothered and reached forward to imprint her lips upon the
surface, a perfectly formed film star kiss. "Hello," she said, half to herself and half to
someone else.

No human had ever seen an adult giant squid alive, and though they had eyes as big as
apples to scope the dark of the ocean, theirs was a solitude so profound they might never
encounter another of their tribe. The melancholy of this situation washed over Sai.

Could fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss? Romantically she decided that love must
surely reside in the gap between desire and fulfillment, in the lack, not the contentment.
Love was the ache, the anticipation, the retreat, everything around it but the emotion
itself.

The water boiled and the cook lifted the kettle and emptied it into the teapot.

"Terrible," he said. "My bones ache so badly, my joints hurt-I may as well be dead. If
not for Biju...." Biju was his son in America. He worked at Don Pollo-or was it The
Hot Tomato? Or Ali Baba's Fried Chicken? His father could not remember or understand
or pronounce the names, and Biju changed jobs so often, like a fugitive on the run-no
papers.

"Yes, it's so foggy," Sai said. "I don't think the tutor will come." She jigsawed the cups,
saucers, teapot, milk, sugar, strainer, Marie and Delite biscuits all to fit upon the tray.

"I'll take it," she offered.

"Careful, careful," he said scoldingly, following with an enamel basin of milk for Mutt.
Seeing Sai swim forth, spoons making a jittery music upon the warped sheet of tin, Mutt
raised her head. "Teatime?" said her eyes as her tail came alive.

"Why is there nothing to eat?" the judge asked, irritated, lifting his nose from a muddle of
pawns in the center of the chessboard.

He looked, then, at the sugar in the pot: dirty, micalike glinting granules. The biscuits
looked like cardboard and there were dark finger marks on the white of the saucers.
Never ever was the tea served the way it should be, but he demanded at least a cake or
scones, macaroons or cheese straws. Something sweet and something salty. This was a
travesty and it undid the very concept of teatime.

"Only biscuits," said Sai to his expression. "The baker left for his daughter's wedding."

"I don't want biscuits."

Sai sighed.

"How dare he go for a wedding? Is that the way to run a business? The fool. Why can't
the cook make something?"

"There's no more gas, no kerosene."

"Why the hell can't he make it over wood? All these old cooks can make cakes perfectly
fine by building coals around a tin box. You think they used to have gas stoves, kerosene
stoves, before? Just too lazy now."

The cook came hurrying out with the leftover chocolate pudding warmed on the fire in a
frying pan, and the judge ate the lovely brown puddle and gradually his face took on an
expression of grudging pudding contentment.

They sipped and ate, all of existence passed over by nonexistence, the gate leading
nowhere, and they watched the tea spill copious ribbony curls of vapor, watched their
breath join the mist slowly twisting and turning, twisting and turning.

Nobody noticed the boys creeping across the grass, not even Mutt, until they were
practically up the steps. Not that it mattered, for there were no latches to keep them out
and nobody within calling distance except Uncle Potty on the other side of the jhora
ravine, who would be drunk on the floor by this hour, lying still but feeling himself pitch
about-"Don't mind me, love," he always told Sai after a drinking bout, opening one eye
like an owl, "I'll just lie down right here and take a little rest-"

They had come through the forest on foot, in leather jackets from the Kathmandu black
market, khaki pants, bandanas-universal guerilla fashion. One of the boys carried a gun.

Later reports accused China, Pakistan, and Nepal, but in this part of the world, as in any
other, there were enough weapons floating around for an impoverished movement with a
ragtag army. They were looking for anything they could find-kukri sickles, axes,
kitchen knives, spades, any kind of firearm.

They had come for the judge's hunting rifles.

Despite their mission and their clothes, they were unconvincing. The oldest of them
looked under twenty, and at one yelp from Mutt, they screamed like a bunch of
schoolgirls, retreated down the steps to cower behind the bushes blurred by mist. "Does
she bite, Uncle? My God!"-shivering there in their camouflage.

Mutt began to do what she always did when she met strangers: she turned a furiously
wagging bottom to the intruders and looked around from behind, smiling, conveying both
shyness and hope.

Hating to see her degrade herself thus, the judge reached for her, whereupon she buried
her nose in his arms.

The boys came back up the steps, embarrassed, and the judge became conscious of the
fact that this embarrassment was dangerous for had the boys projected unwavering
confidence, they might have been less inclined to flex their muscles.

The one with the rifle said something the judge could not understand.

"No Nepali?" he spat, his lips sneering to show what he thought of that, but he continued
in Hindi. "Guns?"

"We have no guns here."

"Get them."

"You must be misinformed."

"Never mind with all this nakhra. Get them."

"I order you," said the judge, "to leave my property at once." "Bring the weapons."

"I will call the police."

This was a ridiculous threat as there was no telephone.

They laughed a movie laugh, and then, also as if in a movie, the boy with the rifle pointed
his gun at Mutt. "Go on, get them, or we will kill the dog first and you second, cook third,
ladies last," he said, smiling at Sai.

"I'll get them," she said in terror and overturned the tea tray as she went.

The judge sat with Mutt in his lap. The guns dated from his days in the Indian Civil
Service. A BSA five-shot barrel pump gun, a .30 Springfield rifle, and a double-barreled
rifle, Holland & Holland. They weren't even locked away: they were mounted at the end
of the hall above a dusty row of painted green and brown duck decoys.

"Chtch, all rusted. Why don't you take care of them?" But they were pleased and their
bravado bloomed. "We will join you for tea."

"Tea?" asked Sai in numb terror.

"Tea and snacks. Is this how you treat guests? Sending us back out into the cold with
nothing to warm us up." They looked at one another, at her, looked up, down, and
winked.

She felt intensely, fearfully female.

Of course, all the boys were familiar with movie scenes where hero and heroine,
befeathered in cosy winterwear, drank tea served in silver tea sets by polished servants.
Then the mist would roll in, just as it did in reality, and they sang and danced, playing
peekaboo in a nice resort hotel. This was classic cinema set in Kulu-Manali or, in
preterrorist days, Kashmir, before gunmen came bounding out of the mist and a new kind
of film had to be made.

The cook was hiding under the dining table and they dragged him out.

"Ai aaa, ai aaa," he joined his palms together, begging them, "please, I'm a poor man,
please." He held up his arms and cringed as if from an expected blow.

"He hasn't done anything, leave him," said Sai, hating to see him humiliated, hating even
more to see that the only path open to him was to humiliate himself further.

"Please living only to see my son please don't kill me please I'm a poor man spare me."

His lines had been honed over centuries, passed down through generations, for poor
people needed certain lines; the script was always the same, and they had no option but to
beg for mercy. The cook knew instinctively how to cry.

These familiar lines allowed the boys to ease still further into their role, which he had
handed to them like a gift.

"Who wants to kill you?" they said to the cook. "We're just hungry, that's all. Here, your
sahib will help you. Go on," they said to the judge, "you know how it should be done
properly." The judge didn't move, so the boy pointed the gun at Mutt again.

The judge grabbed her and put her behind him.

"Too soft-hearted, sahib. You should show this kind side to your guests, also. Go on,
prepare the table."

The judge found himself in the kitchen where he had never been, not once, Mutt
wobbling about his toes, Sai and the cook too scared to look, averting their gaze.

It came to them that they might all die with the judge in the kitchen; the world was upside
down and absolutely anything could happen. "Nothing to eat?"

"Only biscuits," said Sai for the second time that day.

"La! What kind of sahib?" the leader asked the judge. "No snacks! Make something,
then. Think we can continue on empty stomachs?"

Wailing and pleading for his life, the cook fried pakoras, batter hitting the hot oil, this
sound of violence seeming an appropriate accompaniment to the situation.

The judge fumbled for a tablecloth in a drawer stuffed with yellowed curtains, sheets, and
rags. Sai, her hands shaking, stewed tea in a pan and strained it, although she had no idea
how to properly make tea this way, the Indian way. She only knew the English way.

The boys carried out a survey of the house with some interest. The atmosphere, they
noted, was of intense solitude. A few bits of rickety furniture overlaid with a termite
cuneiform stood isolated in the shadows along with some cheap metal-tube folding
chairs. Their noses wrinkled from the gamy mouse stench of a small place, although the
ceiling had the reach of a public monument and the rooms were spacious in the old
manner of wealth, windows placed for snow views. They peered at a certificate issued by
Cambridge University that had almost vanished into an overlay of brown stains blooming
upon walls that had swelled with moisture and billowed forth like sails. The door had
been closed forever on a storeroom where the floor had caved in. The storeroom supplies
and what seemed like an unreasonable number of emptied tuna fish cans, had been piled
on a broken Ping-Pong table in the kitchen, and only a corner of the kitchen was being
used, since it was meant originally for the slaving minions, not the one leftover servant.

"House needs a lot of repairs," the boys advised.

"Tea is too weak," they said in the manner of mothers-in-law. "And not enough salt,"
they said of the pakoras. They dipped the Marie and Delite biscuits in the tea, drew up
the hot liquid noisily. Two trunks they found in the bedrooms they filled with rice, lentils,
sugar, tea, oil, matches, Lux soap, and Pond's Cold Cream. One of them assured Sai:
"Only items necessary for the movement." A shout from another alerted the rest to a
locked cabinet. "Give us the key."

The judge fetched the key hidden behind the National Geographics that, as a young man,
visualizing a different kind of life, he had taken to a shop to have bound in leather with
the years in gold lettering.

They opened the cabinet and found bottles of Grand Marnier, amontillado sherry, and
Talisker. Some of the bottles' contents had evaporated completely and some had turned
to vinegar, but the boys put them in the trunk anyway.

"Cigarettes?"

There were none. This angered them, and although there was no water in the tanks, they
defecated in the toilets and left them stinking. Then they were ready to go.

"Say, 'Jai Gorkha,'" they said to the judge. "Gorkhaland for Gorkhas."

"Jai Gorkha."

"Say, 'I am a fool.'"

"I am a fool."

"Loudly. Can't hear you, huzoor. Say it louder." He said it in the same empty voice.

"Jai Gorkha," said the cook, and "Gorkhaland for Gorkhas," said Sai, although they had
not been asked to say anything. "I am a fool," said the cook.

Chuckling, the boys stepped off the veranda and out into the fog carrying the two trunks.
One trunk was painted with white letters on the black tin that read: "Mr. J. P. Patel, SS
Strathnaver." The other read: "Miss S. Mistry, St. Augustine's Convent." Then they were
gone as abruptly as they had appeared.

"They've gone, they've gone," said Sai. Mutt tried to respond despite the fear that still
inhabited her eyes, and she tried to wag her tail, although it kept folding back between
her legs. The cook broke into a loud lament:

"Humara kya hoga, hai hai, humara kya hoga," he let his voice fly. "Hai, hai, what will
become of us?"

"Shut up," said the judge and thought, These damn servants born and brought up to
scream. He himself sat bolt upright, his expression clenched to prevent its distortion,
tightly clasping the arms of the chair to restrict a violent trembling, and although he knew
he was trying to stop a motion that was inside him, it felt as if it were the world shaking
with a ravaging force he was trying to hold himself against. On the dining table was the
tablecloth he had spread out, white with a design of grapevines interrupted by a garnet
stain where, many years ago, he had spilled a glass of port while trying to throw it at his
wife for chewing in a way that disgusted him.

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Poorly executed writing and Morally Offensive

Was it not Orhan Pamuk that said that an author who has not experienced poverty should not attempt to write about it? Kiran Desai has violated this maxim and her elitist attitude and class status are clearly evident.

"The Inheritance of Loss" is virtually an unreadable novel for several reasons. However, before I go into these, and another commenter calls me and other "negative" commenters "rubes," I should state that I have been studying and reading literature for thirty years and am a civil rights attorney.

Ms. Desai's novel fails in several areas: characterization, dialogue, grammar, sentence construction, flow of the prose, and moral obligation to the subjects.

Every character in this novel has the same voice and interior monologue. All the voices are juvenile at best and immature at worst despite the age of the character. (e.g., p. 3, during the judge's interior monologue, he thinks, "Never ever was the tea . . ." May I ask, which adult male uses the term "Never ever" verbally or in his own mind? Similarly, the cook thinks in his interior monologue on page 10. "They had guns now, which they might clean of rust, fill with bullets, and . . . shoot!" A grown man with average intelligence would not think in such childlike terms.)

Further, you do not "know" the characters since each of them appear to be the same in tone, thoughts and personality. Unlike, perhaps, the deep and vivid characters in Jhumpa Lahiri's work, Desai's characters are flat, sterotypical and robotic.

Ms. Desai's use of dialogue is unrealistic and stilted as well. If you read her dialogue out loud with another person, you will realize that people do not talk in that manner.

Grammatically, Ms. Desai's book is rife with a plethora of errors that read to a person like fingernails scratching down the literary blackboard of the soul. The novel reads like an exotic Sophie Kinsella novel. She overuses adverbs and adjectives in a superfluous manner. She uses the same word redundantly in the sentence. (e.g., p. 8, the word "hanging" is used twice in one sentence.) Perhaps, she could make use of a thesaurus. Virtually on every page, she misuses dependent clauses such that actions occur simultaneously, which could not happen at the same time. There is a more creative way to design similes and metaphors than by always using the word "as." This writing distracts from the flow of a novel.

The most egregious part of Ms. Desai's book is that it humiliates and debases people of poverty, people not of her socio-economic class and caste. She presents all the impoverished characters as though they were weak, powerless, unintelligent and prideless. Apparently, Ms. Desai has had very few negative and/or real life experiences and has lived in a privileged bubble as shown by her insensitivity in the text. (e.g., page 6 when describing the cook: "His lines had been honed over centuries, passed down through generations, for poor people needed certain lines; the script was always the same, and they had no option but to beg for mercy. The cook knew instinctively how to cry." This is insulting and degrading. Also, on page 11, she writes "He was a powerless man, barely enough learning to read and write, had worked like a donkey all his life...."

Perhaps, she should listen to her dear friend Orhan Pamuk.

9 out of 13 people found this review helpful.

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Mybookreview

Posted May 2, 2009

Complicated but in the end politically challenging

The story made me curious enough to continue reading to the end but most of the characters were unlikeable people. There was a great deal of turmoil in the story that didn't seem to have a point until near the end of the book when the historical political implications were made apparent. This story could serve as the basis for book club discussions about empirialism and hegemony with extrapolation to contemporary events.

4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted July 17, 2007

I Put This One Down

I am an AVID reader and HATE not finishing a book, but I just could not get through this one. I am usually eager to read and find out what happens next, but picking up this book was painful each time and I decided to just give up. If you like books that discuss political issues this might be for you, but I prefer great characters that you learn to love/hate/empathize with etc. and I did not find that in The Inheritance of Loss.

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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If You Like Wading, Jump Right In.

I really wish I had read the reviews before buying this book. I can't believed it received such acclaim. The author clearly has style--her narration is chock-full of little spot-on anecdotes--but her character and plot development are nonexistent. I have felt more connected to cartoon characters. Maybe I just didn't get it, missed the point, but by the time I was halfway through, I hated the book so much that I didn't care anymore about the fact that it was over my head. I will never again purchase a book based solely on its receipt of the National Book Critics Circle Award or the Man Booker Prize.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted July 23, 2008

hard to follow

I love historical novels, but the history here wasn't presented clearly, and the characters and story were boring. Only Biju came alive for me - I wish there'd been more about him. The other characters and their backgrounds (each representing some social or political group, to drive home the historical points), all became a blur. I enjoyed learning more about the upheaval/conflicts in India at that time, but it was a long, slow read, and the melodrama at the end felt contrived.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted July 5, 2008

A reviewer

I thought this would be a good book, but it turned out to be confusing, wildly random and difficult to follow.

3 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted April 5, 2008

No to This One

The reviewers who loved this one do not need to insult those of us, and it seems to be the majority, who do Not. I am a college graduate so I have some smarts. But this book was a waste. I regret spending the money. The beautiful cover and the inside jacket rave reviews sold me. Next time I will think twice about a Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Award. The story was disjointed and sporadic. I do want some degree of coherency and fluidity to a story. This was a mess. I just didn't get it. I started over several times. Thought about having my reading friend try it for her opinion. There are just too many good, great books out there to waste time and money on something like this.

3 out of 7 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted March 18, 2008

You people don't get it

Good writing isn't beginning middle and end. A novel doesn't need a clear plot to be excellent. You see, there are things in the business called 'literary devices.' Some of these are things like irony, symbolism, personification, things like that. The 'proper' use of these transcends the simple writing that rubes like you people seem to enjoy and turns a text into a well of meaning. If you aren't too inept to notice, you'll find that Desai's novel is loaded with themes dealing with the effects of post-colonialism on the third world. She does a very elegant job portraying these themes, especially through the relationships she creates between characters. Overall it was a good read 'in every sense of the word'.

3 out of 7 people found this review helpful.

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The Inheritance of Loss is a truly beautiful novel. The themes K

The Inheritance of Loss is a truly beautiful novel. The themes Kiren Desai explores in this story, family dynamic and national identity, are almost cliche when it comes to Indian literature, but Desai pulls it off, and beautifully so. These characters will get inside you, their hopeless dreams will become your hopeless dreams, their deep regrets will become your deep regrets, their mountain will become your mountain. The rich and evocative prose is perfect for the subject matter, and the story unfolds in a natural way which will keep you turning pages. This novel strongly reminded me of Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, which is a very good thing.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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LadyBugJS

Posted November 7, 2012

For some time I wanted to read this book. The cover and the titt

For some time I wanted to read this book. The cover and the tittle caught my attention at first glance, but, at the same time, I was afraid that this was one of those books which would make me feel disappointed because of the initial expectations I had about it.

I admit that initially it was a little hard for me to read and make a connection between characters and stories. The first, let’s say, 150 pages, were slow reading. After that, as I became more familiar with the characters, it started to be easier to establish a connection between everything I was reading.

The writing is amazing, almost like poetry sometimes. There are lots of details, which is, in my opinion, a positive thing, although sometimes it makes the story develop slowly. But, on the other hand, I think that the details give value to the book and to the story.

It takes some mental availability to really capture every detail that is written; to travel between India, England, USA, a little bit of Russia, without getting lost along the way; to create a connection with the characters, remembering their past and the present.

From Sai's life (and her relationship with Gyan), who lives in India with her grandfather (who had a brilliant past but became a cold man) and with the cook (whose son was working for the U.S.A.), through Uncle Potty, an alcoholic, Father Botty, who has a “small secret&quot; revealed halfway through the book, and the two sisters who live alone and have to rely on a guard who they barely know, to the life of Biju and his friends in the U.S. and the difficulties foreigners can have a country that is not theirs. We see the lives of the characters unfold from a past time at a college in England which is the beginning of new habits and ideas, an orphanage, illegal ways to achieve what you want, because it's the only way to get it, the idea that you have to hide the past or present story about your family; war and hate. It is the story of an inherited poverty, that often goes unnoticed, and an inhumanity that we would prefer that not existed.

It is not a light reading, but I recommend it.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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TinaWI

Posted June 22, 2012

slightly offended, but I feel a little smarter now, I guess.

Having read 'the most helpful critical review' before reading this for school, I really noticed the infantalization of many of the characters. No lie, it was offensive, if not just annoying.
But it caused me to consider colonialism and other (kind of) current events effecting India.
After reading the book, I read some scholarly articles on it, that also gave the characters' attitudes more meaning. But that doesn't make it a fun read, does it?

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Anonymous

Posted January 18, 2012

highly recommend

Themes relate to impact of colonialism on a culture. I read some of it aloud to my mom, because she loves beautifully crafted sentences. Much food for thought--fabulously written.

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Anonymous

Posted December 26, 2011

Don't waste your time

I felt fortunate when I picked up this book in the audio format for pennies on the dollar at a thrift store. However, that is where the good luck stopped. This book was really hard to follow. It lacked good flow and did not have the skill needed to artfully weave past to present and vice-versa. It was choppy and confusing. Because of that I did not become invested in the characters, so it didn't matter what happened to them. I have worked in education for 20 years and have been exposed to many writing styles. I am an avid reader that tries to give an author a fair chance by trying to finish what I start. Unfortunately, I pushed on through this one to the end, even though the end could not get there fast enough. When the big confusing amalgamation finally finished, it was a huge relief that I felt physically, thankful to get it behind me. I will not pass it on. There were moments of brilliance when the author deftly painted pictorial prose and I suppose because of those rare gems, I continued on with hope. But the book did not live up to the hype and I'm wondering how it could have received any type of award. There are too many wonderful books out there to waste your time on this one.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Xanthe

Posted September 19, 2009

I Also Recommend:

Enjoyable

Very flavorful writing. Not quite as good as The God of Small Things, but very good

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Anonymous

Posted January 3, 2008

Disappointing

This book doesn't seem to have any point. It goes on and on about the characters, but doesn't ever really bring it all together. I don't see how/why this won any awards.

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Anonymous

Posted January 11, 2008

I remain clueless

This is one of those books where the author appears to have felt pressured to get another book out there right away. She almost begins to make some connection between the characters, some purpose for the reader to want to learn more about them. Unfortunately, it just continues to wander until I realize I've been turning pages and don't have any idea what I just read. Tried putting it down, reading a different book, then picking it up again. It just gets worse. My physician took it off my hands thinking he might like it. He thanked me for the best sleep he's had in a long time. I honestly don't even care that I'll never know how it ended because I never knew what was going on from the start. (or at any other time)

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Anonymous

Posted October 22, 2007

Disappointment!

Like another reviewer, I was excited to read this book, with all of the awards and great reviews. It was very nicely written indeed, but was lacking in any kind of story that could be followed and enjoyed. I struggled to finish, and really didn't want to. I thought I would be rewarded at the end, but was not. In a word: BO-RING.

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Anonymous

Posted September 19, 2007

A wonderfully written book

Beautifully written, this book is a coming-of-age story that depicts a young girl growing up as an orphan in her grandfather's home. It presents a tapestry of lives in Nepal amid political change.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted August 30, 2007

A real disappointment

I was really excited to read this book because it's an award winner and had such good reviews. I was so disappointed. The book seemed to go nowhere. There was no real plot or story. I agree with the other reviewer, I also hate not finishing a book but I just couldn't continue reading this one.

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Anonymous

Posted September 2, 2007

A reviewer

I loved this book...could hardly put it down. I have spent time in India perhaps that is why I liked it so much. I thought she had amazing insight into all of human behaivor.

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